I teach government. I have periodically wrestled with whether I could continue to do so. I have come close to walking away from it, because I what I saw worried me sufficiently that I wondered what point there was - signing statements, Military Commissions Act, abandoning Geneva as "quaint" "enhanced interrogation methods," extending executive privilege to energy executive coming to the White House to craft policy could have their identities kept undisclosed, Scalia flying on a private plane across the nation to go hunting with Cheney while the last issue was pending before SCOTUS, ... was there still a meaningful constitution and political system about which to teach my students? Meanwhile, educational policy distorting the very process of school itself, depriving those most in need of real teaching and learning of the opportunity to do much beyond prep for low level tests.
Each time I hav wrestled with these issues. Each time I decided to keep teaching - "for now" - in the belief I could make a difference, and that the nation would come to its senses.
Now, once again, I no longer know what I will do.
There is a practical issues. I teach Advanced Placement Government. The questions for this year's examination were crafted more than a year ago. If it is multiple choice questions and it deals with campaign finance law, is it possible that what was a correct answer the day before yesterday should now be considered wrong, and a previous "distractor "(aka wrong answer) is now correct? If it is a Free Response Question should the students answer it in terms of the law before yesterday's ruling or must they take it into account? And since I, like most teachers of the subject, am already past that part of the curriculum, should we take the time to go back and explore the implication of the decision, or simply move on?
My inclination would be to spend some time on a decision that will have monumental consequences, as soon as this election cycle. That would be easier to do were there not so many interruptions for external testing required at the district level that rob me of class time. To do that I will have to drop at least one if not two of my planned guest speakers, even though guest speakers are an essential part of how I try to make our learning connect with the real world.
And then there is educational policy at a national level. We have a Democratic administration that is on a path to do more to destroy public education than did the previous Republican administration. I do not say that lightly. Secretary Duncan clearly has the full support of the President in the approach he is taking. The requirements for receiving the Race to the Top (I DESPISE that formulation) funds - which states and districts desperately need in a time of revenue shortfalls - include allowing the use of student test scores as a means of evaluation of teachers and lifting the caps on establishing charter schools. Many states in desperate need of funds are rushing ahead to make major changes in their educational law without proper discussion of what they are doing, and in some cases is leading to teachers losing some important collective bargaining rights. Further, Duncan has offered a hostility towards teachers - he wants rules changed to make it easier to dismiss teachers and displays an attitude that implies most of the failures in American education should be blamed on teachers. He uses rhetoric about international competition that (a) misreads what the data says, and (b) copies the attacks used by Republicans on American public schools, unionization of teachers, and the like.
Yesterday I pondered the implications of the Supreme Court decision. To me at least there is a strong overlap with what is happening in education, especially now. We are seeing radical changes being made to our political and educational structures without the full participation of the elected representatives of the people. National educational policy has already been altered without full discussion by the Congress. That reminds me of the hasty passage of the USA Patriot Act, which made radical changes to civil liberties without full discussion by the Congress.
It is at times appropriate for the Supreme Court to move in a radically different direction, when the two political branches will not act. Clearly that became necessary in the area of Civil Rights, as we saw in the Brown deicision. But that case was not decided in isolation: already graduate and professional schools were being integrated because it was too expensive to establish completely separate and equivalent institutions for Blacks. And I remind people that Brown did not overturn Plessy, but was decided - UNANIMOUSLY - on the basis that since schools segregated by race were "inherently unequal" they failed the separate BUT EQUAL test of Plessy, and hence were unconstitutional.
Yesterday a bitterly divided Supreme Court overturned not only recently decided jurisprudence on campaign finance, it rejected the long-standing framework of the 1925 version of the Corrupt Practices Act. It tilted the nation even more in the direction of unfettered corporatism, despite the clear original intent (to which some of the Conservative Justices on paper are committed) to limit the power of strong economic interests.
I am not a lawyer. I do not want to be a lawyer. Nor do I wish to hold elective office. Yet I look at yesterday's decision and I see a Court whose reasoning would allow it to similarly overturn other major pieces of our governmental and political structure as an unconstitutional infringement on the "personal" rights of corporations. What is left of the New Deal and Great Society social legislation is now in jeopardy not only because of conservative legislators, but also conservative justices at state as well as federal levels.
I said this is personal. I must also include my participation in this site. I look with sadness at the withdrawal of dengre from further participation, even as I understand precisely what he is feeling. Increasingly when I look at the site I shake or scratch my head. I do not object to expression of strong feelings. I do wonder about the level of vitriol that has been apparent on this site in recent months. I have commented on my reaction to this in the past, and will not repeat what I previously said, except to note that there are things I encounter here that also tend to discourage my participation at the level that I had in the past.
Tend to discourage. But I have not left. I stay. I participate as I can. Perhaps, as happened yesterday, I write a diary about an important op ed on torture that does not draw much attention. I might be frustrated, but since my intent was to ensure awareness of the op ed, and it was later featured in a front page story, my frustration dissipated. Then, perhaps had that diary drawn more attention I would have found myself in the crosshairs of those who seem willing to attack anyone who criticizes the administration for how it disappoints us on issues we consider important.
Perhaps my situation is somewhat different. I may be disappointed by what Duncan is, with Obama's blessing, doing on education, but I am not surprised. All of what I am seeing was discernible in the educational policy and rhetoric offered during the campaign. Had I considered only education, while I would have voted for Obama it would have been with little enthusiasm and doing little more than voting on his behalf.
I had hoped for a willingness to be bold in addressing the moral failings of the last administration - on torture, on allowing corporations and especially financial institutions to run rampant. I certainly had some hope for using the crisis of the economy to move more forceful to correct its imbalances. I believed at the time the stimulus was far too small, and worried about the implications of needing to come back for a second round.
Still, I had hope that a Democratic House and Senate and a strongly popular Democratic president would demonstrate the moral fortitude to boldly address the multiple crises facing this nation.
Like many, I have been disappointed, even as I acknowledge that we are in far better shape as a nation than we would have been without Democratic control of all three, with a President John McCain for example.
I find I tire more easily. It is not just that I will be 64 in May. It is that my efforts seem at times to be almost pointless. Politics seems to be irrevocably broken, dysfunctional to the point where the process is damaging the nation and the people. If so, how does my participation therein make any positive difference? How can I justify spending time trying to get my young people to be involved?
When I volunteer at a medical-dental clinic, even if all I do is handle the paperwork and guide patients around, I see an immediate impact, a difference in the lives of a few people whose path crosses mine. Teaching requires me to have a longer perspective, in the hope that somewhere down the road what I share with students will make some kind of positive difference in their lives, and thus - hopefully - in the larger society in which we live.
But if their voices will not matter unless they are in the leadership of the major corporations, is my teaching obsolete, perhaps counterproductive to their personal interests in a social, economic and political structure that now seems as if it will be very different than what I have known in my 6 plus decades?
Meteor Blades writes about a new Gilded Age. In a sense, we have experienced the appetizer for that meal in the past few decades - remember Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, with the ever obnoxious Robin Leach? Yes, eventually that helped give birth to the Progressive era, but at what cost? And is it not worthwhile to remember that Karl Rove was quite proud of focusing on that time, on the role of Mark Hanna in facilitating the political development of the 1890s. Had McKinley not been assassinated, might the progressive movement that begins with T. Roosevelt's presidency not even have happened? Was that a case where an assassination - however horrible the implications for our nation - not actually have benefited our society? And to even consider that possibility, what does it say about me, about those who are frustrated and angered with what they see happening to our nation?
This is personal. I have devoted the past decade and a half to teaching young people, to wanting to make a difference in their lives and thereby to our nation. I have foregone the opportunity for more lucrative - and less exhausting - employment. Since 1998, with one year teaching history, my course of choice has been government. I have for most of my life been a politically active and committed individual.
And now? My participation here is an important part of my political participation. As I age my shyness begins to reassert itself. I find it easier to use whatever gifts I have with words to try to inspire and provoke others.
And yet, and yet, and yet . . . all of this is interconnected. If I cannot teach with integrity, I will not teach. The issue of integrity is about how I teach, what is imposed upon what I do within my classroom. It is also about the content of what I teach. Yet again, after yesterday's decision, I am no longer sure what America's political and governmental structure is, or is supposed to be. If I am not sure, do I do my students a greater disservice by not exploring that in my teaching, or by sharing my deep unease at what I see happening?
If I am reaching a point where my doubts are so great, what then is the point of my participation here? That I share my doubts and concerns in the hope of finding some connection with others? Is that sufficient justification? That perhaps in dialog we can raise issues, explore solutions, and perhaps in some small way participate in recovering our nation and our society before it is irrevocably lost to the dominance of corporate interests?
I do not know. Unlike dengre, I am not YET ready to walk away from here. Nor am I YET prepared to give up politics and teaching.
So long as I still believe I can make a positive difference, and that I may learn and grow from my participation, I will continue to teach, to write, to be politically involved.
I was not surprised by yesterday's decision, even as I had hoped that Anthony Kennedy might be more sensible. Yet I am still deeply saddened, and perhaps in a state of mild shock.
I share that here because since December of 2003, this community has been my extended family. I have learned from many. Sometimes it has been just by reading, without participating in the discussion. At times I have been able to open my soul, my heart, and found through the responses that I was not alone in what I felt or experienced. My current disquietude is certainly not unique.
I have pain, I have angst, I have anguish, I have sadness.
And I will shower, get dressed, go to school, administer a pointless test, put my grades in, and plan for another week of teaching. I will when I can read and digest and if possible dialog with others here. I will continue to try to influence elected public officials on things that matter to me.
I will do all these things precisely because it is personal. Because I cannot NOT do them, not so long as there is hope, there is a possibility of something different.
So for now, I go on. It becomes ever harder to do. I come here for reinforcement, in the hopes of finding that I am not alone, yet that others who hurt and are angry are also continuing the struggle to make a difference.
It connects me with the larger world. Which is why I do what I do, however badly I may do it. I cannot NOT do this.
For a very simple reason.
This is personal.
Peace.